peter
“I’ve only just recently fallen in love with reading again. Growing up, I was always quite academic. Books were my thing and I adored them. I studied hard in school and got the results, it was that simple for me and I really did form my identity around it. I knew the formula; I was Head Girl, I was smart, I studied and I got the results. Then I went to college and failed a few exams. In reality, it was because I was on the piss too much, but to me, it felt like I wasn’t the person I thought I was. The formula I had based my life around didn’t check out anymore and I had a bit of an identity crisis. I stopped reading because I assumed books were reserved for intellectuals who don’t fail exams, and I was no longer that. Reading felt like I was only kidding myself and I totally stopped. Fast forward a few years, I found myself bored stiff one Christmas at home in Mullingar. For whatever reason I picked a book off our dusty bookshelf and swore to myself, no matter what this book is about or however hard it is to read, I am finishing it. As luck would have it, the book was terrible, I mean, dog shit, but I finished it, after years and years of not reading. That was last Christmas and every single book I’ve read since, about 13, has been better than the last. It’s so easy to get trapped in the idea of who you are; the intellectual one, the funny one, the outgoing one or the shy one, instead of just being yourself. If you define your personality it’s so easy to punish yourself if you step outside of those parameters. No list of personality traits defines you, you define you!”